Sunday, July 13, 2008

Behind The Skins Of Buildings






I took the first photo because of the number on the second floor, many two- and three-flats on Archer have their street address in the granite above doorways or on walls. This part of Archer has many side streets that are longer than Hoey, but not by much, and none run intermittently across the city as certain other streets that intersect Archer will, i.e., Avers and Ridgeway. Pitney Court, Salt Street (no sign, dammit!), some streets act as markers, Quinn Street has a vacant lot where the Quinn Street Inn stood, Arch Street has the vacant lot where St. Bridget's used to be. Broad Street, Lock Street, the bus would speed by them in an eye blink. The Doghouse is gone, a tavern with cut out dogs on the angled roof. The place that sold Filbert's root beer is still there, only not it has a sign on the metal door that reads Southern Sails. You can see Kunka's Drugs in the movie BACKDRAFT, which was filmed here during the autumn of 1993. Further up was the massive Archer Avenue Big Store, which became a Zemsky's and is now a supermercado. Kunka's seemed to be closed, and I had no one nearby to ask. This style of architecture could be seen in many buildings now gone, ice cream parlors and small restaurants, the old Martin Senour paint company (on Senour Street), and a few small shops across that street (35th) in a huge building that once housed the Peterson Bowling Alley, which was on the SECOND floor. To an extent, even the long gone Brighton Theater had brick structure like Kunka's. The vacant lot by the I-55 sign was where the church had been, now there is a huge billboard attached to the next building over for a strip club in Indiana. That sign is the same one from the happy accident double exposure from the back cover of WITH WOUNDS STILL WET, the photo by HE Fassl. Times past, man. Times past.